Friday, February 4, 2011

January 2013 - Please note this blog is in the process of being moved, and this page is no longer being updated. I'm keeping it up for the time being because I know it gets traffic from people looking for sites like MTurk. For the most recent version of this page, along with more sites like MTurk that are no longer added here, please refer to:http://freebiejunkieblog.com/are-there-alternatives-to-amazon-mechanical-turk/

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That’s a search phrase someone used to find this blog recently. I know I’ve looked for them as well, in an attempt to find more places to make money online.I’ve only been at this for a few months, so I’m definitely no expert. I guess my best answer to it would be, “Yes, but”.There are similar opportunities online, but in my opinion nothing pays as well as MTurk.I’ll write down what I’ve found so far, and why I find them many of them inferior.Crowdflower. This is known on MTurk as “Dolores Labs”, and as you can see on TurkOpticon, there are a lot of opinions about them. The positive part is that they won’t reject you on MTurk, rather they’ll quality screen you out of certain jobs. They’re good for new people who are just starting out, to get a hang of the process. They pay quickly and also always have work available. The down side however, is that they pay so low it’s beyond an insult, require a ridiculous amount of work for insanely low pay, and their quality control test questions are frequently incorrect. If you’re not on MTurk and want to give them a try, they do offer opportunities at a number of other sites around:Swagbucks – Look under Answer –> TasksInbox Dollars - Look under TasksFusion Cash - Look under Offers --> Daily Offers --> More Special Offers --> Daily TasksSend Earnings - Look under Cash Tasks

Added in 2012:ClixSense - Look under Tasks. This is new for 2012, and has the added bonus of paying downline commission on referral's tasks.GiftHulk - And another new one for 2012. Pay for the tasks is slightly higher here, so this may be a good one to check out. Click Earn --> Tasks to view what is available.

Added in 2013:

GiftHuntersClub - A CrowdFlower site with a pretty good selection of tasks available. I just joined this site at the end of December, and I won't have a chance to really look it over until after the holidays. I'll update with a review after the New Year.Please view the rest of this post at

Today I ran into a frustrating situation with my Amazon Payments account. It's even more frustrating because Mechanical Turk has been the biggest earner for me yet.

I received a request to verify the last four digits of my social security number two days ago, which I did. But the next day I received:

Greetings from Amazon Payments:

Thank you for signing in to your Amazon Payments account and verifying your account information. Unfortunately, we were unable to confirm the information you submitted.

To verify your account information:

1. Sign in to your Amazon Payments account. 2. Click the Edit My Account Settings link at the top of the page. 3. Click Verify My Account Information and submit the requested information.

You can also sign in to your account and contact us if you believe we have made a mistake.

- The Amazon Payments Team

OK. Odd, but I did it again. And then received the same message. And repeated.

Then today, I received this:

Greetings from Amazon Payments:

We appreciate your use of Amazon Payments. Unfortunately, we have been unable to confirm your account information. This may be because you failed to respond to our past requests for more information or we could not confirm the additional information you gave us.

In either case, we are now required to restrict your Amazon Payments account features.

Please sign in to your account and contact us should you have any questions about our need to take this action.

- The Amazon Payments Team

I can't transfer money out of my Amazon Payments account now, which is obviously a huge problem. I'm not going to do any work on MTurk until this is resolved, but that's really going to cut my earnings down to about zero. It's so frustrating because the amount of good HITs on MTurk has finally ramped up, and I was counting on it to be able to pay my insurance bill this month.

I wrote to them asking what I need to do to fix this. I'm hoping it gets resolved soon. That insurance premium due date is looming....

Update 4:30 PM - I received a reply from Amazon Payments, so I'm very happy with how fast they responded. As I expected, they want me to fax them a copy of my ID. I'll head out to send this fax later on tonight, and report on how fast they resolve this issue. So far, so good.

Update 01/07: Couldn't get to OfficeMax last night, so I got my paperwork faxed over this afternoon. I'm not expecting anything to happen over the weekend, but it would be great if they could get this fixed sometime next week. I'm missing out on a ton of work, and a ton of desperately needed money. Very bummed, but keeping a good thought.

Update: 01/13: Hooray! All fixed! I got an email from Amazon today stating the hold was lifted, and I can now log into MTurk.com. I've missed it!